NS hires in extra intercity trains

14 September 2007, UTRECHT – The Dutch Railways NS has once again ordered in new equipment to accommodate the growth in the number of travellers in the Netherlands.

14 September 2007

UTRECHT – The Dutch Railways NS has once again ordered in new equipment to accommodate the growth in the number of travellers in the Netherlands.

104 intercity carriages have been ordered for rental from rail companies abroad.

Ten carriages have also been taken over from NS International. Sixty extra carriages were put on the tracks this month; by the end of the year they should all be in use, primarily on the routes Deventer-Amersfoort-Amsterdam and Arnhem-Utrecht-The Hague.

The extra carriages will increase the number of seats available on the NS trains to 256,000 by the end of this year. NS trains had a total of 240,000 seats in December last year.

The extra capacity is sorely needed. The number of train passengers has been rising steadily since 2005. The NS transports more than 1.1 million passengers each day and all reserves are being drawn on in an effort to reduce the number of overloaded trains.

The railway company has been working the past few years to replace carriages. At the moment NS has some EUR 700 million outstanding for new intercity and local trains.

The cabinet wants public transport to grow by 5 percent annually. The Dutch Railways play an important role in this ambition.